Unable to open StatTransfer'ed files >2gb in STATA/MP v.14 64-bit.

[Troels Munch]

Hey everyone,

I'm new to this forum, so please forgive me if I forget any relevant information - please ask if that is the case.

As the title states, I'm unable to open .dta files >2gb which I have created by converting a .sas7bdat file in StatTransfer. I get an error message stating that ".dta file is corrupt. the file does not record <strls> where expected. Either the file was written incorrectly in the first place or has become corrupted r(612)". Converting and opening smaller files haven't been an issue.

I'm using STATA/MP v.14 64-bit with 32 (also tried on different server with 48) cores and 512 gb RAM. I have some other .dta files >2 gb which I've been able to open just fine (EDIT: these are actually also converted .sas7bdat-files where I also used StatTransfer. EDIT3: This was actually an old STATA 12 file)

I thus suspect the issue might lie with StatTransfer, but as they have no forum I figured I would ask if anyone here had any ideas as to why this occurs? And what I can do to fix the issue?

Kind regards,
Troels

EDIT2:
As the <strls> coding was (I believe) introduced with STATA 13 it dawned upon me that perhaps converting to STATA 12 would solve the issue (I had previously tried both converting to STATA 13 and 14). It did. I'm just unsure if this isn't going to pose any problems for me down the line?

[Friedrich Huebler]

Which version of Stat/Transfer are you using?

As the <strls> coding was (I believe) introduced with STATA 13 it dawned upon me that perhaps converting to STATA 12 would solve the issue (I had previously tried both converting to STATA 13 and 14). It did. I'm just unsure if this isn't going to pose any problems for me down the line?

Are there long strings in the original data? If yes, how are they treated by Stat/Transfer when you convert the data to Stata 12 format?

[Troels Munch]

Hey Friedrich, thanks for your reply!

I'm using version 13 and checked for updates today.

The strings shouldn't be that long. One of the files I'm encountering this issue with has a max string length of 98. I believe these strings are stored in the str format as they should not be long enough to end up as <strls> using the default settings for Stat/Transfer 13. I'll try and set the threshold for <strls> down to see if this fixes it.

[Clyde Schechter]

Stat Transfer does not have an online forum like this one, but I have always found their customer service to be extremely responsive. It seems unlikely that this is a Stata problem.

As an interim workaround, you might try selecting the Options tab in Stat Transfer, then select Output Options 1. One of the options you can set there is your target version of Stata. Try resetting that to an older Stata version from before strLs were introduced (which was version 13). That should prevent Stat Transfer from attempting to create any strLs. And unless you need some other recent changes to the Stata data file format (e.g. unicode characters), the resulting Stata 12 file should be perfectly functional.

ADDED LATER: Sorry, I just noticed that everything I said here has been previously said by others in this thread. Somehow when I opened the thread it jumped to the last post, and I thought I was responding first.

[Troels Munch]

Thank you for your response Clyde! I have already emailed Stat/Transfer.

Altering the threshold (both up, eliminating the need for <strls>, and down) doesn't seem to have changed anything and so far the only workaround I have been able to find was converting to an old format.

[wbuchanan]

It sounds like it might be a data corruption issue. I've converted old SAS files that were > 4GB using StatTransfer and never had an issue reading them into Stata.

[Steve Dubnoff]

We are aware of the problem with large files with strls and/or value labels. We fixed it at the end of September. Do get the update, please turn on automatic updating or check for updates manually.

Best,

Steve
Circle systems

[Troels Munch]

Hey Steve,

Thank you! I will try and update again, however it should have done so November 17.th.

[Richard Williams]

Troels I don't think you ever said what version of Stat/Transfer you are using, Version 13 is the most current.

[Troels Munch]

Hey Richard, I stated in post #3 that I'm indeed using Version 13, but thanks for the reply! Apparently, however, it hasn't updated contrary to what I thought as I didn't have the proper permissions for altering the program on the server. I've contacted the IT-department and hope that'll solve the issue - I'll let you all know! Thanks for the help!